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TechnologyDaily Mobile
Satellite's Day In The Sun
by Drew Clark
There have been winners and losers in the communications sector since Hurricane Katrina, but perhaps no segment has emerged with as clean a bill of health as the satellite industry.
Traditional and wireless telecommunications providers and cable operators saw their infrastructures washed out by floods or rendered useless by power outages at cellular towers, and most television broadcasters went off the air. But the Satellite Industry Association has highlighted its record of success after the storm.
Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Sept. 29, association Chairman Tony Trujillo said that as of Sept. 21, only 60 percent of the cell networks were operational, 70 percent of the broadcast stations were live, and 2 million calls were failing. "In stark contrast to the failures in the terrestrial networks, fixed and mobile satellite services were nearly 100 percent operational on Sept. 21, just as they were on Aug. 28, Aug. 29, Aug. 30, Aug. 31, and the hours and days immediately following Katrina," said Trujillo, who is senior vice president at Intelsat.
"The wonderful thing about the satellites [is] that they're 22,000 miles above the earth's equator. They're impervious to what's going on on the surface of the earth."
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin agreed. "Satellite service providers did not experience damage to their infrastructure," he said at the same hearing. "They have helped to bridge some of the gaps left by many of these outages."
From Science Fiction To Storm Salvation
The satellite industry traces its origins to a 1945 article in Wireless World by science-fiction writer Arthur Clarke. He described "extra-terrestrial relays," or how "rocket stations [can] give worldwide radio coverage," through a geo-stationary orbit. The satellites appear stationary because they rotate with the earth. The first satellite was launched in 1963 for military purposes.
It is an inherently global industry that has changed dramatically within the past decade. There are two basic categories of satellite service: fixed and mobile.
Fixed services include television and broadband sent to an 18-inch satellite dish bolted to a home or office. Examples include satellite phones, like those of Iridium and Globalstar, and satellite radio from XM Satellite Radio or Sirius Satellite Radio that are designed to be received with a portable device. Iridium and Globalstar both deploy a unique constellation of low-earth orbit satellites about 400 miles from into space. Their costly networks caused both companies to go in and out of bankruptcy, but both have been benefiting from new post-Katrina subscribers.
Although satellite phone, radio and television companies own their satellites, many business and residential data customers rely upon capacity controlled by big satellite operators like Intelsat, Inmarsat, or PanAmSat or SES Americom. In August, PanAmSat agreed to be acquired by Intelsat. Under the 2000 federal law, Intelsat and Inmarsat are barred from re-combining with formerly owned companies.
As satellite services are earning praise for their post-Katrina role, the industry is seeking greater recognition of its call to incorporate satellite technology into a multi-layered communications network with redundancy, or back-up capabilities. Because satellites can communicate globally, without wires or towers on the earth, they can provide telephone, television, radio and high-speed Internet services to areas that are not served, either temporarily or permanently.
Bringing Satellite Phones Down To Earth
As the Red Cross and others opened relief centers throughout the Gulf Coast, often the sole means of voice and data communication was through a VSAT -- industry-speak for a very small aperture terminal, a four- to five-foot satellite like those on top of Wal-Mart stores or gas stations. Hughes Network System, which resells capacity on others' satellites and has been promoting satellites to deliver broadband to rural areas, connected some of the VSATs at relief centers, police command posts, and T-Mobile "hot spots" for wireless Internet access.
But as Trujillo and others testified, Katrina also highlighted a new need -- incorporating satellite phone services directly into terrestrial communications networks.
"Satellite phones are extremely useful for command elements, but often hopelessly impractical for individual first responders," said David Boyd, director of the Homeland Security Department's SAFECOM program for systems to connect public-safety officials across jurisdictions. "They require training, and signals can be blocked by vegetation, buildings, terrain and even weather. They also use batteries that need recharging. And a first responder in the middle of a rescue or up to his armpits in floodwater will find the antenna hard or impossible to aim."
Some of those problems could be avoided if satellite phone capabilities were incorporated directly into police radios or cellular handsets. That prospect is driving two companies with licenses to offer hybrid satellite-cellular service, and they are engaged in a behind-the-scenes battle with Inmarsat.
Each of the companies, ICO Global Limited and TerreStar Networks, is seeking to offer a new mobile satellite service in conjunction with a network of cellular towers. Each has won licenses for 20 megahertz of prime spectrum. But they say they cannot make public-safety systems work together with fewer frequencies.
Inmarsat's recent effort to re-evaluate the licenses, citing the need for more than two competitors, "has created the specter inside the FCC of splitting it up among the three, instead of 20 for us and 20 for ICO," said Robert Brumley, CEO of TerreStar. "Inmarsat is using the regulatory process to preserve its dominant position in the mobile satellite market," the company wrote in an FCC filing
But Inmarsat CEO Andrew Sukawaty countered that the public would not be well-served by limiting competition to two companies.
Toward A Broader Emergency Alert
Katrina also has exacerbated a long-simmering spat between terrestrial radio broadcasters and XM. In a letter last week to FCC Chairman Martin, 21 legislators called on the agency to require satellite radio to participate in the Emergency Alert System. The system requires radio and television broadcasters and cable systems to allow the president to communicate with every television or radio during emergencies; it never has been used.
Media companies voluntarily participate in state and local emergency announcements. XM Radio does, too, putting local emergency announcements on one of 21 channels for local traffic, weather reports and alerts. XM also established an always-on station -- dubbed Channel 247 -- on which it carries national emergency information, and the company created a special channel for Katrina.
But XM said its participation should remain voluntary. "Voluntary compliance with state and local EAS plans has proven successful to date for broadcasters and cable systems, and there is no reason to believe that a similar voluntary approach will not be successful for satellite radio," company attorneys wrote.
"We would welcome XM and Sirius joining the fold to help free radio provide lifesaving information in times of emergency," said Andy Levin, executive vice president of Clear Channel.
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